Hello again everyone; yes, it is I, Chess the excellent purebred border collie, here to entertain and delight you as best I can. You may remember me from such posts as “Dear County Assessor” and “Dumb Garden Pictures”, among so many others.
Here I am in a highly atmospheric pose. I could be Sidney Greenstreet sitting in the dark in the back room of some seedy establishment somewhere in the Mediterranean, illuminated only by the jalousies. I could be, but I’m not; this is my fort.
What a day we had today. The guy I live with said he didn’t get enough sleep last night, because there was a mouse caught in the Tin Cat, and I got all scared, and the guy I live with went downstairs to let the mouse out of the Tin Cat, into the garage, and then I went back to sleep, with my nose facing the window, and the guy I live with rested his left arm on my rear end, like a pillow sort of, which he does a lot, and then I had a rare attack of what they call in polite circles wind, more or less right smack in the guy I live with’s face, so the night didn’t go as smoothly as it almost always does.
The guy I live with put up more fencing, and had to place the pickets behind the hedge of New Mexican privet (Forestiera neomexicana), since he didn’t feel like cutting the whole hedge to the ground. He cut himself so much on the branches he looked like he’d fallen asleep in a cactus garden.
This is what the construction site looked like. I bet you wish your garden was this elegant. Those are big privet branches on the right.
The neighbor kid came over when the school bus dropped him off; there wasn’t anyone home at his house so he came over here until someone came to get him. This happens from time to time and I must say I don’t much care for little kids. Usually he stays in the living room, reading my mommy’s Donald Duck comic books, while I stay outside, unhappy, but today I stayed inside and he stood on the path watching the guy I live with put up pickets.
I could hear the neighbor kid talking. “My grandma has a thousand trees and some of them are bananas and there are monkeys and it’s going to be another botanic gardens and I saw a garden snake once and I got scared because it jumped out at me and then I walked back to the house and then …..” The guy I live with said about three words.
Here’s the tree wrapping job the guy I live with did in the dark last night. You might be able to see why my mommy called him “Mister Fixit”.
Meanwhile, the pods are being neglected. This is what fell in just one day. I’m not going to rake them up. I don’t know why the solar light, on the left, leans the way it does, but it does.
Well, that’s about it. The guy I live with can barely move. His right leg hurts, he bled all over the patio, he has Achilles tendinitis, and arthritis, and his back hurts, so he says it was a good day.
I guess I’ll go now.
the miserable gardener 
I agree, Chess, the dark back room of some seedy establishment, with you looking as if you listen to someone inveigle your participation in a covert unsavory Scheme. You are right to look askance.
Does your person bandage himself as well as he bandages trees?
Before we put in two walls, we considered fences. I am here to tell you, having looked at a few, that is one fine fence. Your person should preen, if he can move enough to do so. The gate conveys charm and importance to what lies beyond. It’s a gate of character.
Oh, he didn’t make the gate. My mommy made the first gate, but it got broken by a neighbor dog who got her paws stuck in it, trying to jump over it and head for Kansas during firecracker season, and so the guy I live with had another neighbor, who was a carpenter, build a new gate exactly like the old one. So he can’t take credit for that.
He doesn’t bandage himself; he prefers to look tough. Actually, his grampa was an Army doctor and told him when he was a little kid that letting air get to cuts was better than bandaids. Besides, he doesn’t have enough to cover every scratch and gash.
Pods are not dealt with here until they are all down. It is too depressing otherwise.
Yeah. My only issue is that by the time all the pods are down, it could snow, and the pods might be buried under the snow all winter, smothering little tiny plants.
Stupid pods. Too bad you can’t sell them to someone.
This is what the municipal green waste bin is for.
It’s surprising how unwilling the pods are to break down, even after several years. There must be some ecological pod-oriented dumb reason.
One thing, though. They do have a pleasant smell when ripe. (My mom, who’s in her 80s, says they remind her of benzoin.) If you have a dog, and, um, a bag for dog-related items, a whole bunch of pods added to the bag does improve things.
Gardening can be a miserable experience, as you well know. Ouch.
Ouch, but, the fence is close to half finished. The part I’m doing now, anyway.
Gardening is not for sissies or the faint of heart.
No, and yet the guy I live with’s doctor claimed that gardening is not exercise. Ha.
My grammy skis 3-4 hours a day, every day, through the entire winter. The first week she is a tad stiff, but then she feels fine. Come April, she begins grubbing around the garden and after the first day she has trouble climbing the stairs for the better part of a week. Don’t tell her that gardening is not exercise! Clearly, the doctor is an idiot.
The guy I live with has never been on skis. He’s seen some, though.
Yet another highly entertaining post. Thanks, Chess!
You’re welcome. The guy I live with can be moderately entertaining, sometimes.